Battle lines drawn in Romanowski trial / A brutal punch, or a quest for 'payday'?

Lance Williams, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Photo: PAUL CHINN

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Bill Romanowski talked with his attorney Jeffrey Springer before the trail started. Opening statements in the civil trial against former Oakland Raiders player Bill Romanowski on 3/1/05 in Oakland, CA. Former teammate Marcus Williams filed a $3.8 million lawsuit against Romanowski after a practice field fight severly injured Williams.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle less

Bill Romanowski talked with his attorney Jeffrey Springer before the trail started. Opening statements in the civil trial against former Oakland Raiders player Bill Romanowski on 3/1/05 in Oakland, CA. Former ... more

Photo: PAUL CHINN

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Plaintiff Marcus Williams chats with his attorneys before the proceedings. Opening statements in the civil trial against former Oakland Raiders player Bill Romanowski on 3/1/05 in Oakland, CA. Former teammate Marcus Williams filed a $3.8 million lawsuit against Romanowski after a practice field fight severly injured Williams.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle less

Plaintiff Marcus Williams chats with his attorneys before the proceedings. Opening statements in the civil trial against former Oakland Raiders player Bill Romanowski on 3/1/05 in Oakland, CA. Former teammate ... more

Photo: PAUL CHINN

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Bill Romanowski conferred with his team of attorneys before the trail started. Opening statements in the civil trial against former Oakland Raiders player Bill Romanowski on 3/1/05 in Oakland, CA. Former teammate Marcus Williams filed a $3.8 million lawsuit against Romanowski after a practice field fight severly injured Williams.
PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND S.F. CHRONICLE/ - MAGS OUT less

romanowski_047_pc.jpg
Bill Romanowski conferred with his team of attorneys before the trail started. Opening statements in the civil trial against former Oakland Raiders player Bill Romanowski on 3/1/05 in ... more

Photo: PAUL CHINN

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** FILE ** In this photo released by the Alameda Police Department shows Oakland Raiders tight end Marcus Williams after police say he was attacked by teammate Bill Romanowski in the left eye in this August 2003 file photo. Williams' lawyers are preparing for opening statement for a trial in Oakland on Tuesday, March 1, 2005 against Romanowski. (AP Photo/Alameda Police Department) less

** FILE ** In this photo released by the Alameda Police Department shows Oakland Raiders tight end Marcus Williams after police say he was attacked by teammate Bill Romanowski in the left eye in this August ... more

Battle lines drawn in Romanowski trial / A brutal punch, or a quest for 'payday'?

"Marcus and Bill had grips on each others' facemasks, starting some conflict," Ryan Prince, who played briefly with the Raiders in 2003, testified in the first day of the trial of Williams' personal-injury lawsuit against Romanowski.

Suddenly, he said, Williams' helmet came flying off, and "Marcus caught a right" uppercut from a "furious" Romanowski.

Prince said the incident had occurred during an unusual full-tilt practice held two days after the Raiders had been whipped in a preseason game by the Minnesota Vikings.

Williams, a tight end, was blocking Romanowski on a practice running play, said Prince, who watched with a group of receivers. The two players began mixing it up after the play ended, he said.

Although football is a rough game, Prince indicated the incident was the most violent he had seen in his four-year career as a special-teams player on four NFL teams.

"I've never seen that, never," said Prince, now a pharmaceuticals salesman in Utah.

The incident -- how it occurred, and especially, whether it is the sort of event that is bound to happen in the hyper-violent world of the NFL -- will be the key question to be pondered during the trial.

In his opening statement, Williams' attorney, James Brosnahan, called Romanowski's conduct "brutal violence beyond the world of football" and said he would ask the jury to punish Romanowski for wrecking Williams' promising NFL career.

He described Williams as a former star receiver for Berkeley High School and Washington State University whose lifelong dream had been to play for the Raiders.

By the lawyer's account, Williams was unusually fast and had exceptional jumping ability and was likely to have played in the NFL for years.

But the blow from Romanowski shattered Williams' eye socket, leaving him with double vision and brain damage, the lawyer said, along with flashbacks and psychological problems.

Brosnahan said he would ask the jury to compensate Williams not only for lost income -- the player was making $300,000 per year from the Raiders -- but for the pain and suffering he has endured.

But Romanowski's attorney, Jeffrey Springer, told jurors that Williams' injury was simply an incident of "mutual combat" that ended badly for one of the combatants.

Like it or not, he told the jury, NFL football is a violent game, where "aggression is something that the coaches teach, that they seek," and where, inevitably, injuries like the one suffered by Williams can occur.

Romanowski is sorry that Williams was injured, Springer said. He described the veteran linebacker as an outstanding player for the 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles and Denver Broncos as well as the Raiders, one who "made a mistake, he didn't do a good thing on one day, one play."

But he also accused Williams of "looking for a payday" by filing the lawsuit against Romanowski.

Springer said Williams' legal team was exaggerating Williams' football prowess and also exaggerating the extent of his injuries in an attempt to win millions.

One issue that was not mentioned on the first day of the trial was steroids. Court records in the BALCO steroid conspiracy case in San Francisco show that Romanowski was an early client of alleged steroid kingpin Victor Conte. Williams' legal team had packed its witness list with the names of steroid experts, apparently hoping to portray Romanowski's attack on Williams as " 'roid rage," the name for sudden bursts of anger that can afflict steroid users.

But in a pretrial ruling, Judge Cecilia Castellanos sharply restricted the ability of the plaintiffs to present evidence about steroids, and it was not clear whether evidence about steroids and Romanowski would be presented to the jury.

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